One challenge of chewing gum in general is that the chewing gum is a complex delivery vehicle. Chewing gum or gum base ingredients may affect multiple properties of the chewing gum. One such example may be that the application of a particular gum base or chewing gum ingredient softens the chewing gum, thereby leading to an increased release of nicotine due to the eased chewing of the chewing gum. This may be attractive or non-attractive, but a challenge is that the release of nicotine may be different from the release of nicotine induced by another ingredient and most of all, the chewing gum texture may simultaneously be affected to a degree that the chewing gum does not have the desired typical textural chewing gum properties. This may e.g. be counteracted by the incorporation of another chewing gum ingredient making the chewing gum harder and/or increasing the elasticity, but this may then affect the desired release of nicotine and so forth. When referring to typical textural chewing gum properties, it is here noted that the desired rheology of chewing gum is very different from the rheology of typical chewy confectionery such as toffee, chocolate, wine gum, etc. This is in particular the case in relation to the elastic properties required to obtain a confectionery product satisfying the consumer's expectations in relation to a chewing gum.
A particular challenge in relation to nicotine chewing gum is that the nicotine released may cause an unpleasant sensory sensation for the user of the chewing gum which is generally referred to as burning. On the other hand there is a desire to maximize the nicotine release from the chewing gum, as it is this nicotine which provides the user of the chewing gum the desired counteraction of craving.
In other words, the nicotine should be released, but at the same time the nicotine released causes the burning.
One possible way of increasing the amount of nicotine delivered to the body of the person chewing a nicotine chewing gum is increasing the amount of nicotine in the nicotine chewing gum. Several drawbacks may, however, be associated with this approach, such as increased burning due to a resulting increased release of nicotine. Moreover, nicotine is a relatively expensive substance, and increasing the amount of nicotine in a nicotine chewing gum may therefore increase the manufacturing costs of such nicotine chewing gums.